1. Field of the Invention:
The present invention relates generally to a computer implemented method for handling email content. More specifically, the present invention relates to emails that link header content to one or more indexed signatures.
2. Description of the Related Art:
Modern users of networked computers collaborate with each other through the use of electronic messaging systems, for example, email. Email is an electronic message formed and transported via Internet and/or intranet email systems based on, for example, the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) and X.400 systems, among others.
Email is typically originated by a user who authors a source email using a source client. The source email is the email as transmitted from the source client. A source client is an email authoring tool, for example, IBM Lotus Notes, Google Gmail, and Microsoft Outlook, among others. Simple emails can be composed using editors such as the popular UNIX editor, vi, and directing a file so-composed to a command-line mail invocation. The command-line invocation can rely upon, for example, qmail or sendmail. Under such a circumstance, the qmail or sendmail program is the source client. An email may exist in several forms. An email may be in draft form while a user authors it. An email may be a source email, forwarded email, or received email.
A draft source email is an email that is incomplete and in the process of being written. The draft source email is a data structure stored by a source client in response to a user-entered command to edit. The draft source email may have placeholders for components usually associated with an email, for example, a to-line field, a subject field, and a body, to name a few.
After completing an email, a user may enter a command to transmit the source email. A data processing system sends the source email to a source server. A source server is a data processing system that receives email from a network and forwards the email as a forwarded email to one or more recipients as defined in the to-line field. The source server may be a store-and-forward email server. The source server may be a mail transfer agent. Typically, the source server forwards a source email as a delivered email to one or more recipients of a domain. The domain is typically assigned to a destination server so that the source server forwards emails of the domain to the destination server. Nevertheless, the source server may also be the destination server, for example, in cases where the email traverses a proprietary intranet. A delivered email is an email that is sent to a destination server, or to a server that supports the destination server. To be a delivered email, the email merely needs to be sent addressed in a manner to reach the destination server, and not necessarily received at the destination server.
The destination server, responsive to receiving the delivered email, looks up a recipient appearing in the to-line field. If the recipient is valid, the destination server may store the email in a repository associated with the recipient. At some time, usually on a set schedule, the destination client may poll the destination server. Consequently, the destination server may download the delivered email to the destination client. In this context, the destination server is the server that receives an email from a source server. However, when a destination client replies to an email, the roles of each server may be reversed such that, for purposes of the reply email, the destination server becomes the source server, and the source server becomes the destination server. A destination client is an email client that can download emails from a server and render such emails to a user. A received email is an email downloaded to a destination client.
Rendering an email comprises a data processing system displaying email content comprising the first few lines of the body of the email. The rendering may include showing text in specified fonts, showing embedded images, and providing MIME transformations of the email, for example. When visible on a computer display, a received email may be a rendered email, having a rendered body. An email displayed to a screen may still be a rendered email even though parts of the email are not displayed in an optimal form. For example, some destination clients are unable to render all fonts, and some destination clients do not in all cases display image content. Moreover, some destination clients compress portions of an email dialog by replacing a prior generation of forwarded email(s) as a graphic image, rather than displaying the text of the body of such forwarded email. Such a graphic image may be accompanied by indicia or text that indicate subject, author and date of the ‘replaced’ email. Indicia can be a line of text describing such information. Thus, a rendered email is any received email that is presented having at least a few characters of the body visible or a rendered image of the body visible to the display.